Inspiron 1720 Beeping at Random?

I have a Dell Inspiron 1720. I just installed a secondary hard drive - a Western Digital Scorpio Black 320GB and everything seems fine - except now I get this random single-beep noise every few hours... regardless of whether I'm working on the computer or not. I have run the FULL Dell diagnostics and the Western Digital diagnostics and everything checks out fine. I'm at a loss, but I'm 100% positive the beeping started as soon as I installed the new drive. Does anyone have any ideas about what this could be? Since it happens at random while the system is booted (never at POST) I'm completely puzzled.

 

when you back up your hard drive, it will beep to warn people so they won't get run over.


ah. i crack me up.

 

did you check out Event Viewer to see if there are warnings or errors related to your drive? It sounds like Windows is trying to issue a warning, but you have the Error Reporting service disabled... so you hear the beep - but don't see a warning message popup in the tray.

just a thought

 

Check this website out and see if you could localize what your beep means.
http://www.pchell.com/hardware/beepcodes.shtml

 

nice, steb... and with the size of the 1720, beeping would be appropriate during a backup! XD

Anyways - there are a lot of entries in the event viewer, but none appear to be related to any kind of drive/controller failure. Also - the Western Digital software tool ran a sector-by-sector scan (which took 2 hours) and found no problems with the disk. In fact, the disk is performing really well.

emignatius - I looked into the beep codes awhile back, but the beeps are not happening during POST. Instead, they happen at random times throughout the day. The Dell diagnostics (hour-long version) came up with nothing. Can BIOS beep codes sound during normal PC operation (after you're booted up and logged in)?

 

Oh, yes. Missed the every hour-beep post.

Do you run a 32 bit or 64 bit system? Your hard drive might need a firmware update, I'm not sure about this though.

Anyway, if everything is working fine just like you said in the diagnostics you performed and you're just bothered by the beep, you could just disable it by opening your device manager > select view > show hidden devices > click non-plug and play drivers > right click beep > properties > click stop on status and disabled on startup. Then you'll hear no more beeps. Sometimes these are just bugs that will never go away, if you know what I mean.

 

Been out for a few days. Anyways - That's something I didn't think of, but I really don't want to shut the beeping off in case a seemingly legit problem crops up... but get this... the beeping is only happening every 24-36 hours now. Maybe by the weekend, it will be gone XD Also - this is a 32-bit system.

FWIW - I'm also chasing down a clicking noise that's apparently "normal" for the Scorpio Black drive in question (the likely cause for the beeps) but all diagnostics check out, all firmware is up to date and there are no other clues in event viewer, etc, etc. Some people are blaming the drive as just being noisy while others point to Windows Power Mgmt. I've worked in IT for a long time and I know what a dying drive sounds like - this isn't it. Now I'm just hoping to find a software/firmware fix...